What Foreign Policy?

Published: December 1, 1991

(Page 2 of 2)

After the Tiananmen massacre, Vietnam's Communists conducted their own crackdown, the country's most brutal since 1975. They are vastly unpopular at home. They are also desperate for cash, Soviet aid having dried up almost completely over the past two years.

With no cards to play, Vietnam has also followed China's lead in maneuvering the U.S. into normalizing relations without having to liberalize politically. Mr. Bush's road map for normalization, conceived solely as a reward for Vietnam's cooperation in Cambodia and on the P.O.W.-M.I.A. issue, asks for no democratic reforms from one of the world's most repressive systems. This is an abominable failure, given our special responsibility to address the plight of those who stood by the U.S. in the war.

Nor does the policy mention the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, signed by the Vietnamese Communists, which guaranteed that "the South Vietnamese people's right to self-determination is sacred, inalienable and shall be respected by all countries," and that they "shall decide themselves the future of Vietnam through genuinely free and democratic elections under international supervision."

U.S. policy avoids facing new economic realities. Economic power directly correlates with national security. Mr. Bush and others ignore that, and particularly its relevance to Japan's rise, at our collective peril.

It is estimated that within two decades Japan will have the world's strongest economy. It has achieved this growth by adopting an aggressive national strategy, spearheaded by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. Defying conventional wisdom regarding the ill effects of protectionism, Japan has protected home markets and dumped products at reduced prices abroad, driving out -- and in many cases destroying -- domestic competition until the only products available are Japanese. Mr. Bush and his allies like to call this "free trade."

Furthermore, the radical devaluation of the dollar agreed on by the U.S. in 1985 has not altered our trade imbalance. Rather, it has allowed Japan, which imports all its oil, an incredible windfall: since oil is bought with dollars, cheaper dollars mean cheaper oil. In 1981, Japan spent more than 5 percent of its gross national product on oil. That figure has dropped to about 1 percent, allowing Japan billions of excess dollars to spend on American capital assets.

Mr. Bush and "free trade" economists debunk concerns about the Japanese buying trend, pointing out that it creates jobs -- no matter that the profits from our labor go back to Japan, where they can be used to purchase even more capital assets. In the old days they called this "colonialism."

To date, Mr. Bush has neither the strategy nor the will to address these inequities. If they are not addressed, we must accept a grave national truth: we have become so dependent on the Japanese for capital investment and in the financing of our debt that we have lost our ability to protect our long-term interests.

These issues beg for debate. And no Democrat is likely to unseat George Bush without taking them on.